The Casting of Frank Stone Preview: Dead by Daylight with a Supermassive flair

While it is nearing a decade in age, Dead by Daylight is actually one of the more accessible live titles that exists today. You can boot up this asymmetrical horror title without ever experiencing it before today, and after a few hours, feel comfortable in what it brings to the table (mechanically speaking, you'll be less comfortable emotionally...). But, if the longevity of Behaviour Interactive's hugely popular game does still put you off, there are ways to get into the wider world without playing the core game itself, and one of these ways is the upcoming The Casting of Frank Stone.

To be clear, this isn't really a Dead by Daylight game. Yes, it's set in the same universe. Yes, it's published by Behaviour Interactive. But it's also developed by Supermassive Games and is a narrative-heavy horror adventure that conforms to the same stylings and trappings that we've become used to in The Dark Pictures Anthology, The Quarry, and Until Dawn. This means you can look forward to a cinematic experience that is almost like playing a horror film, one where you make choices and overcome quick-time events to shape the story and send you down a path to one of many endings. So, no it isn't an asymmetrical horror game about evading killers played by your friends or vice-versa.

Is that a bad thing? Not at all. In fact, I would go as far as saying that combining the deep IP of Dead by Daylight with the talents and expertise of Supermassive is a match made in heaven. It's nothing we haven't really seen before, but that's fine because it's effortlessly terrifying and uncomfortable, has a really deep and authentic atmosphere that rivals a lot of horror projects on the market, plus intricate and varied dialogue with plenty of choices that allow you to alter the narrative and test how things will conclude when making different decisions. It's Supermassive through and through. And that stretches to the UI, the character design and models, the cooperative elements, and so forth. The point I'm trying to make is that even though this is a very unique project in that it's a third-party Dead by Daylight experience, it's also very familiar.

But anyway, let's get to the meat on the bones. The Casting of Frank Stone is a story that delves into the mystery of Cedar Hills, where a sadistic killer based in a grim steel mill spawned and unleashed horrors on the unsuspecting town folk. For the demo portion, I didn't manage to get this far as this brief taste of the game revolved around the first 30 minutes or so where we take on the role of Sam Green, a local police officer tasked with investigating the steel mill to find a kidnapped small child. You explore this dark environment, gathering items and tools that allow you to reach new areas, and ultimately travel deep into the bowels of the steel furnace and confront a killer attempting to use the child for a twisted ritual. What happens here is up to you and how you react to quick-time events and make snap decisions by selecting dialogue options that frequently pop up. For my first play through of the demo, I saved the child, defeated the killer, and seemingly saved the town. I say seemingly as something much darker is lurking in the shadows...

The gameplay is very straightforward. The exploration is basic and mostly includes wandering around small open areas to find interactable objects that add a bit of extra colour and depth to the wider lore and narrative. The interactable options also seem to be quite rudimentary and limited, but this is because the main sauce of The Casting of Frank Stone (like other Supermassive games) is the core storyline, which engages and keeps you on the edge of your seat. Whether it can manage to continue to do so for its full duration remains to be seen, but this opening taste I was privy to has definitely impressed.

What I will say about the game - and this is perhaps something that will be addressed in time for launch on September 3 - is that the PC performance was a bit kooky. The game faced a few freezes and required the odd restart when navigating the setting menus, and the frame rate ended up being a bit choppy at times too. As is often the case with photorealistic-styled graphics and character models, there is also the occasional bit of strange behaviour, particularly with how a character's lips move, but overall The Casting of Frank Stone seemed to have that same attention to detail as other Supermassive projects.

Either way you look at it, The Casting of Frank Stone is shaping up to be a very interesting addition to the Dead by Daylight universe. It's no doubt exciting to DbD veterans, but also compelling for those less wrapped up in the wider lore of the horror title. There's suspenseful horror and great atmosphere present, engaging narrative and choices to be made, and plenty of mystery to unravel, and I'm looking forward to checking it out in its entirety in early September.